


Better Than Chocolate

by rivendellrose



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, post-sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: After trying out something new together for the first time, Crowley has concerns. Aziraphale doesn't necessarily make them better.





	Better Than Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

> Only the obliquest of references to actual sex occur here. It's really just fluff.

“So… what did you think?”

“Oh, no. I’ve been around humans long enough that you can’t catch me that way, angel.” Crowley rolled onto his side and attempted to snuggle into his duvet. “This was your idea. If anyone’s going to start the ‘how’d it go—‘”

“But I’ve done it before!” Aziraphale protested.

“Right. So you’ve got a frame of reference. Not that I’m asking for a comparison,” Crowley added, struck by a sudden idea that this might sound like concern over his performance, which was _entirely_ too human for even him to abide. In another situation, perhaps, but not… now.

“It was… much as I’ve experienced in the past, if I’m honest.”

Trust Aziraphale to hear ‘I’m not asking for a comparison’ as ‘Please, before you go any further, do compare me to your past experiences.’ Crowley pulled the duvet over his head and seriously considered sleeping for the next decade or so. At least until the angel had given up and gone away. And then a year or two for safety.

“I don’t mean that at all in a bad way,” Aziraphale continued. “It’s just… well. I rather thought it would be different, you know? With you.”

“And why in the name of all cock-up would that be?” muttered Crowley under the covers, as if precisely the same thought hadn’t been what lured him into trying this whole palaver out for the first time in six thousand years for his own part.

“We’re different.”

“Very.”

“I meant from them.” Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably on the bed, and Crowley could just picture him, picking at the expensive sheets with that aggravatingly pensive look on his face and his curls frustratingly tousled. “They think with their bodies, you know. But we… I thought perhaps…” He stopped and cleared his throat, and for a moment Crowley basked in the blissful hope that the angel would shut up and leave it at that. But of course not: “If I’m honest, it was never all that satisfying before. Pleasant, but not… and I wondered if it would be different with you, that’s all.”

It might just be possible to smother himself in the pillows, Crowley considered. Ah, but that would lead to discorporation, and _that_ would take him back to a rather large number of his fellow demons, all of whom hated him immensely just now. Was it worth not hearing any more of this? Probably not…

“And because we’ve known each other for so long—”

Then again, perhaps so.

“Listen, angel. It’s not my fault that the… squelchy, slappy putting together of bodies isn’t all that appealing to two creatures whose bodies are just—”

“Good Lord, of course it isn’t, Crowley. That’s not at all what I was saying.”

The covers over Crowley’s head lifted – with a wrench, as he did his best to keep them in place – and he found himself eye-to-eye with Aziraphale’s most pious and concerned expression. _Perhaps I should have just let them douse me in holy water_ …

“I’ve mucked it all up with words, haven’t I?” Aziraphale smiled that horrible, wonderful beatific smile of his that raised memories more than six thousand years old and never failed to make the inside of Crowley – the real inside, the part far deeper than the body he wore – twist with uncomfortable joy. “It’s no different physically between us, because our bodies are, more or less, human. But our souls aren’t—”

“I haven’t got—”

“Hush, you, and you certainly have. Even if you’ve caught it somehow after all the millennia down here, and I know perfectly well you haven’t. The point is, angels aren’t humans. Nor, being made of the same stuff of angels, are demons,” he added before Crowley could protest. “And while the two of us have been through a great many human experiences, and even enjoyed many of them… we are not them. It was silly of me to think, really, that the physical aspect of carnal knowledge could ever be as appealing to us as it is to them. Even when the ‘us’ is literal. I thought because two humans together have that connection, then perhaps two… well. It doesn’t bear talking on, because the point is that I was wrong.”

“Terribly sorry to disappoint,” Crowley grumbled, with all the sarcasm he could muster straining to cover the fact that he _was_ , and he felt positively nauseated by the fact.

“Dearest. You could never.” And there was that smile again, the one laced with the light of long-forgotten heaven at the Creator’s side, and now Crowley really did feel like he might try out another uniquely human experience for the first time this evening – vomiting. _Ever the failure, Crowley. Ever the one who doesn’t quite measure up, aren’t you?_

“I don’t want your pity, angel.”

“Quite fortunate, because you’ve never had it.” Aziraphale pulled the duvet the rest of the way aside and shifted under the covers with him, molding his body against Crowley’s in a way that, at the start of the whole fiasco, had indeed made a tired old demon believe that perhaps humans had a good idea with this whole thing after all. It was still quite nice, too, even after. If the whole thing had been like this, just Aziraphale’s surprisingly cool body pressed close against his always-too-hot one, and the soft scent of him – old books and cocoa and the faint breath of celestial incense – overcoming the memory of rot and brimstone that forever lingered in Crowley’s mouth and nostrils.

“I thought it would be different because I love you, you old snake,” Aziraphale whispered close to his skin. “But the difference wasn’t in the act. That isn’t for us. We’re not formed to need or want it. But this… This is different. Because you know who I am. And I know who you are.”

Crowley coughed slightly, and nervously looked away, then back at Aziraphale, then away again. There was nowhere else to look, though. What was he supposed to do, focus on the threadcount of his own immaculate sheets while the angel talked… like this?

“I was right that it’s different because it’s us. But I was wrong about _what_ would be diferent.” Aziraphale cupped his cheek in one soft, cool hand. “We don’t need all the… bits and bobs and awkwardness. That doesn’t matter, because we both know it’s false. We just need each other.”

It occurred to Crowley, briefly, to make fun of the fact that the angel could do the act – and with the facility that left no question he’d tried it more than once before, besides – but couldn’t bring himself to say any of the words. But it also occurred to him that that might just lead the angel to discover that although on the street he’d be happy enough to use language that would make a statue blush, just now Crowley couldn’t bring himself to use the copious and facile language at his fingertips, either. It felt wrong. And not in that way that was fun, either, not even for him. The wrong word now would have sent Aziraphale into an embarrassed retreat, and while sometimes that was the delight of Crowley’s day… not now. Not here.

“So it wasn’t all that terribly bad,” he said at last.

“It was fine,” Aziraphale agreed, and rested his head on Crowley’s chest. “But this is better.”

Crowley sighed and settled back on the pillows. But, being who he was, he couldn’t let well enough alone. “Better than…?”

“Better than the rest, silly. Were you not paying attention?”

“Of course I was. I only meant… what else is it better than? I’ve never done this before, remember, so I need some kind of frame of reference. And since you didn’t enjoy the other times all that much, ‘better than that’ is rather damning with faint praise, don’t you think? You’ll give me a complex.”

He felt rather than heard Aziraphale’s soft laugh at that, but nothing more.

“Better than…?” he prompted after a long moment.

“I’m thinking.”

“Think quicker. Better than… oh, what silly things do you like, angel? Better than chantilly cake? Better than meringue?” He smoothed his hands along Aziraphale’s naked ribs, and enjoyed the faint shudder that went through the angel’s body. “Better than hundred-year-old beige wool fresh from the dry cleaners?”

“Better than chocolate.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, then remembered Aziraphale couldn’t see it with his cheek pressed comfortably against Crowley’s chest. “As good as that, hmm?”

“Better than… fifty year port.”

“Better than dusty old books no one else wants to read?”

Aziraphale laughed again, audibly this time. “Let’s not get carried away, shall we?”

“Chocolate, though. That’s pretty good. One of the better things they’ve come up with down here, I’ve always thought. Of course, the decadent taint of imperialism adds a certain something. All those lives lost in the conquest—”

“Please don’t. Not right now.”

“Oh, if you insist.” Crowley twined his arms tightly around his angel’s waist and, after a moment’s consideration, kissed his white curls. “Still. You must admit it’s rather high praise, all things considered.”

“And entirely worthy of it.” Aziraphale settled in comfortably, then seemed to stiffen just slightly in Crowley’s arms. “Although…”

“Oh, what now.”

“Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking… next time we could give up on the whole… rest of it, and just bring a few things to nibble on with us.”

“Eating in my bed? Crumbs and bits of strawberry and Hell alone knows what else?”

“I’d offer my own, but I haven’t got a bed. And besides, we’d be careful.”

“Would we?”

“I would. You can only look to your own behavior beyond that.”

Crowley pictured it. Chantilly cake and strawberries and chocolate and champagne all over his lovely bedclothes, perhaps even some oysters if Aziraphale was in one of his adventuresome moods. It would be a mess. His immaculate sheets would never be the same again. Except they would, of course, because a tiny little miracle like that could never attract the attention of either side, and… it might be worth it, after all, to see the angel so cheerfully debauched.

That was the ticket. If he thought of it as a temptation… lust and sloth and gluttony all in one? Even the dukes of Hell couldn’t argue with that, not that he cared a fig anymore what they thought.

“Weeeelll…” he said. “I suppose we could consider it. Next time.”


End file.
